ITCHING IN SYPHILIS

Abstract

Sabouraud has jestingly maintained that a series of two hundred dermatologic aphorisms would amply cover all known practical facts in the field. He included in his list the statement, "Itching lesions are nonsyphilitic," and he qualified thisby the modification that of course some syphilitic lesions itched, but that in general they did not. A search of the literature relevant to the theme of this paper was virtually fruitless. Except for the conventionally known facts that the small papular secondary syphiloderm, or syphilitic lichen and its derivatives, such as syphilitic acne, may itch, and particularly so in the negro, and that syphilids in general are slightly more likely to be pruriginous in blacks than in whites, I found only one reference (and this a most fragmentary one) to the subject in general. Phineas Abraham 1 in discussing pruritus in syphilis states, "This is particularly apt to occur on the scalp, scrotum